Red Rocket is an engrossing state-of-the-nation comedy designed to make us feel so dirty that no amount of washing will remove the sweat from our nether parts.

The film builds to a shattering climax that works precisely because all involved fully embrace the melodrama. Be sure to bring Kleenex.

This film's effectively wrought communion between once-spooked man and animal is more than enough for any entertainment. It rides easily into your heart.

You still leave hoping he ultimately found peace and enlightenment, two things he graciously gave to those of us who hung on his every word.

This captivating adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s 2008 Booker Prize-winning novel, which unfolds among the wild contrasts and contradictions of modern India, offers style, energy and bursts of goofy fish-out-of-water humour before landing on a vicious, dark streak of black-hearted cynicism.

Even at a mere 75 minutes, Silent Souls is thrillingly dense and allusive, and the elegiac finale maintains the overall air of mystery while beautifully bringing all the disparate threads together.

This isn’t revisionist history; it’s a key moment in political radicalism reduced to an empty pop-cultural posture.

Overrated at the time as a piece of mature and realistic cinema with a strong social conscience, this now works best as lurid melodrama.

The filmmaker has fallen for some of indiedom’s worst clichés, including our main character’s sad stare out to the ocean, and soft camerawork that’s beginning to sound like a Klaxon: Hug me, hug me, hug me.

History nerds will note the strenuous efforts to capture the realities of the conflict, but the film’s use of smart Spielbergian grace notes to share its emotional truths is a real strength, too.

If you can view it without thinking of Disney f***ing about with yet another children's classic and relax in the studio's last decent use of Technicolor, then you're in for a treat.

The pleasures are right in your face, beginning with the million-dollar idea of turning NYC into a walled-off prison where criminals run free. Even born-and-raised New Yorkers (of which Carpenter was decidedly not) could smile at that histrionic setup; it’s an outsider’s joke made funny by our willingness to be entertained.

Even if you remove the questionable quasi-religious touches, Flight doesn't quite soar past its narrative limitations. There's plenty of virtuosity to go around here - just precious little transcendence.

When The Father of My Children shifts focus to Grégoire’s wife (Caselli) and children (the eldest is beautifully played by De Lencquesaing’s actual daughter, Alice), Hansen-Løve’s hand steadies, and she reveals a true talent for intimate, behavioral observation.

It is a rich and intensely moving experience.

A buoyant comedy in the Capra tradition.

Part alt–art-history lesson and part pilot for CSI: The Louvre, Peter Greenaway’s deconstruction of Rembrandt’s 1642 painting The Night Watch contends that the work is--after the Mona Lisa, Da Vinci’s The Last Supper and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel--the fourth best-known artwork in the world.

Documentarian Mark N. Hopkins gives us a mature look at the bracing yet very human personalities attracted to crisis.

It ain’t bad, though all that detritus detracts from a far more interesting history lesson on repression and rebellion that’s left on the periphery.

While the frequent recourse to talking heads burdens the documentary with a choppy cadence, directors John Haptas and Kristine Samuelson manage to offer moments of great humor.

Whether you like motorcycle racing or not, Richard de Aragues’s debut is a must-see evocation of the event’s inherent dangers and the ‘balls to the wall’ bravery (or stupidity) of its adrenaline-seeking, carefree contenders. In the realm of the rousing sports doc, this truly excels.

A war film is a war film is a war film... except that Siegel, brought into the project at the last moment when Steve McQueen refused to work with the scheduled director, toughened the standard war-is-hell screenplay into an extraordinary study of psychopathology.

Thoroughly enchanting comedy.

Egilsdóttir centres it all wonderfully as the lugubrious Inga, bemused to find herself slowly transforming into a champion of the underdog.

There is much to admire: the vital performances, notably that of the dark-eyed Tatyana Samojlova as the left-behind Veronika; Sergei Urusevsky's beautifully composed b/w camerawork; the urgent crowd scenes and dynamic mise-en-scène. But Vajnberg's too pointed and occasionally gauche and melodramatic score is unfortunate, given the movie's overall subtlety and emotional restraint.

The doc makes a hairpin turn into sentiment, as the realities of immigration law impose themselves on Randi’s private relationship with his Venezuelan lover of 25 years. We already know that professional charlatans run from their pasts. Where they head to, though, is the better question: For a while, An Honest Liar brings a captivating crusader into view.

Along with the usual streamlining of history, we get a good deal of first-hand emotion and little critical perspective.

His (Fatih Akin) new movie, an occasionally shouty comedy, is easily his most fun.